[dredmorbius]

Applying labels is always fraught and involves compromises. "Islamic World" is well-established and generally recognised. It's also more nuanced than hot takes suggest.

Peter Adamson, host of the History of Philosophy Without Any Gaps podcast and author of the book series from the same project, devotes roughlythe first 20 minutes of his Google Talk about Islamic Philosophy to the matter of why "Islamic World" is in fact the most useful term to use, in contrast to alternatives such as "Arabic" (obviously inapplicable to Persia), "Islam" (fails to acknowledge the role of non-muslim religions, including Christianity, Judaism, Zoroastrianism, etc.).

<https://yewtu.be/watch?v=_NKi-XRZ4KI>

As Adamson notes, it would be more accurate to call mediaeval European philosophy "Christian Philosophy" than to call the philosophical tradition of south-Western and south-Central Asia "Islamic Philosophy", as effectively all mediaeval European philosophers were Christian. Adamson also notes that philosophy of the Islamic World draws heavily on Greek and Roman philosophy (largely via the Byzantine empire) as well as Indian and African philosophical traditions.

"Islamic" refers to not merely the religious foundation, but the greater cultural, political, legal (Islamic jurisprudence is a major factor and influence), etc., etc. As with many other contexts, "dominant influence" does not mean "exlusive" or even "majority", but "that which has the greatest overall impact in a specific area". (Cue numerous tedious HN discussions over questions of "monopoly" or geographic applicability of toponyms such as "Silicon Valley" (contrast "Hollywood" or "Bollywood").

[ybinator604g3]

Thanks for the link. I watched the first 20 minutes and will watch the rest now. It's very interesting.

A small note, popularity (being generally recognized) is not a good indicator of the validity of any view point and it certainly does not mean we cannot challenge them.

> It's also more nuanced than hot takes suggest.

I believe as an Iranian and a history enthusiast, what I expressed was one of those these nuances which is presumably being labeled as hot take, or am I mistaken and you referring to something from somewhere else?

edit: fixed typo

[dredmorbius]

Adamson's work generally is excellent. I've been following the podcast for about 4--5 years now, and have worked through the entire mainline backlog (I'm now revisiting parts), though I'm still catching up on the Indian and Africana Philosophy track. Very highly recommended.

"Islamic World" replaces several earlier-prevalent terms. Again, Adamson makes the case against several proposed alternatives.

On which point, what specifically is yours?

[ybinator604g3]

Yes, he seems well spoken and very articulate.

While his reasoning about his world view and consequently the name of the book is sound, he is not establishing a causal relationship between religion and anything outside the realm of philosophy. He argues that this is the best common trait for philosophical work of those people in that era in the region. It's also natural that he sees everything through a philosophical lens.

> "Islamic World" replaces several earlier-prevalent terms. Again, Adamson makes the case against several proposed alternatives.

We don't have to cover it under the same _umbrella_ term. In the clip (around 11:07) he shows the slide again and says "As an American, I am a born marketer". Imagine if we were to apply the same argument with a comparable time frame (important distinction) and call him a Christian European. Maybe being good at marketing does was not one of their traits. This is the missing nuance.

[wrp]

One way around the awkwardness with "Islamic world" is to use "Near East", which is used to cover the core geographic area in pre-modern times.

If you try thinking of when was a "golden age" of the Near East, it becomes evidently a less sound idea.

[dredmorbius]

"Near east" suffers from the issue that it's a geographic classification rather than one encompassing both a region and a period.

It's also, of course, a relative description in that it is "near" relative to a specific presumptive geographic centre, that is, Europe.

That's not to say that the term isn't viable. But again, nuance and compromise.

[wrp]

"Near East" is not used in academia as simply a geographic classification. It is used among historians as a standard term for a cultural realm and a specific time frame. "Middle East" is another standard term for a more expanded realm and a different time frame. By analogy, "the West" does not connote a precise geographic territory.

[dredmorbius]

I'm familiar with the term.

So far as I'm aware and some quick online checks suggest likewise[1], it largely came into widespread usage in the 20th century and tends to refer to either the Olttoman Empire or the post-WWI nation-states of the roughly from present day Turkey to Egypt to Iran. Wikipedia gives origin of the term to roughly 1855, at which point it would have referred to the Ottoman Empire, as opposed to India, China, the East Indies, and Indochina).

"Near East" has since largely been replace by "Middle East", though that term largely refers to the post World War Two states in the same region. The Wikipedia article noted here gives criticisms of the term largely along the lines I've suggested.

And I'm not aware of either term ("Near..." or "Middle...") being used to apply to the period from the 8th - 13th centuries, a/k/a the Islamic Golden Age.[2]

________________________________

Notes:

1. Largely Wikipedia and Google's Ngram Viewer: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Near_East> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Near+East&year...>

2. For Middle East: <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Middle_East#Usage_and_criticis...> <https://books.google.com/ngrams/graph?content=Middle%20East&...>

3. <https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Islamic_Golden_Age>

[wrp]

> And I'm not aware of either term...being used to apply to the period from the 8th - 13th centuries

The Journal of Near Eastern Studies (https://www.jstor.org/journal/jneareaststud) is typical in defining its scope as the Near East, from the ancient times to pre-modern Near East. As I said, "Near East" is the standard term for referring to the history/archaeology of this cultural region in pre-modern times.

When you want to specify the pre-Islamic Near East, the standard term is "Ancient Near East", as this from the Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History (https://www.degruyter.com/journal/key/janeh/html?lang=en).

The Journal of Ancient Near Eastern History seeks to encourage and stimulate the study of the history of the ancient Near East, which is broadly defined to include areas from Iran to the western Anatolian coast and the Black Sea to Southern Arabia from its prehistoric foundations to the Late Antique period.

The Late Antique period is very roughly the 3rd-7th centuries.

[dredmorbius]

Thanks, fair points.

[falaki]

> "dominant influence" does not mean "exlusive" or even "majority", but "that which has the greatest overall impact in a specific area"

The burden of proof for "high impact" is heavy. I recommend reading some of the articles by the Inarah Institute <http://inarah.net/publications> on how shaky the dominant Islamic history narrative is.

To clarify: It is unclear what the direction of the influence is. Was it Islam that impacted/influenced what happened in Persia, or was it the Persian/Syriac/Nestorian culture that created something called "Islam."

[Karrot_Kream]

Indeed and that's what makes labels difficult.

You can make the same argument about Middle Ages Western Christian philosophy for what it's worth. While it originated in the erstwhile Roman Empire, the cultural and religious norms at the time were very much attuned to the various Germanic norms of the peoples that dominated the formerly Western Roman Empire rather than the joint Roman and Greek culture that constituted the Roman Empire during the founding of Christianity. Eastern Roman Empire viz Byzantine norms were codified in the Orthodox Church canon and philosophy in the region had a much larger overlap with "Islamic" and Greek cultures of the time.

[oa335]

The discovery and dating of Sana’a manuscripts to 630-650AD have debunked much of the “historical critical “ theories of Islam wrt origins of the Quran. It turns out the the traditional narratives seem to be lining up with historical evidence.

[dredmorbius]

In what way, and could you point to a reference on that?